Fading Humanity
by Adrenaline Write
Summary: Drabbles focused along the Careers and former Victors of the Hunger Games. Rated T for suicide and other depressing themes.
1. A Victor's Burden

That day, thousands of them stared at me in tantalizing excitement. As the glistening crown wreathed my head, an uproar of cheering began. But then it all hit me so quickly, and the impact was immense.

I would be forced to want their blown kisses.

To desire their nods of approval.

To relish a frenzy of colourful men and women, eager to speak with me.

It's all so terribly wrong. They don't love me because I made Panem a better place. They don't love me because I spared the helpless tributes. They love me because I obliged with what they thirst for. .they love a murderer. I want love from those who understand my burdens.

The faces of all those frenzied, tattooed animals flash through my eyes before I push the knife into my chest.


	2. You Die, Too

You grip your expensive velvet sofas in a delightful suspense as yet another terrified child drops to the ground, a knife in their skull.

You are a fingertip's push away from life and death, and sit in darkened rooms plotting tragedy to the next unlucky family.

You laugh and talk with them as if you are great friends on camera, but watch in excitement as they starve to death, in your own privacy.

You oversee the entire country with a stern, yet cowardly glare, smiling maliciously when the next set of young men and women catch their last sharp breath.

Even though you are safe from the harm and pain, these deeds kill you, too.


	3. Too Many Corpses

I stare around the scene with an unknown disdain. Bodies litter the grass, pools of blood glistening under the beaming sun. The rest of them, wiping the flowing liquid from their weapons, urge me onward. But something keeps me rooted here.

More bodies are dropping to the ground. Most fight for their breath, eyes widened with shock, but others let out anguished cries before their limbs give way with a sickening thud.

My mother, a former Victor, used to say how one dead tribute felt like one hundred to her, it seemed stupid at the time.

_You've never felt remorse before, and you shouldn't now._

But I do. Only eleven corpses stare back at me, and I come to the conclusion that my mother is right.

It feels like thousands.


	4. Anguished Regret

My heart thumps in my chest as her choking wail echoes through the clearing. I carve the knife deeper into her grimy flesh, wishing to close my eyes.

_Focus…you must do this if you want to win._

They called it the very first 'Hunger Games'. Those unearthly creatures, with their blindingly vibrant skin, shrieked in excitement when the President spoke in a cryptic tone. They all knew something we didn't, but nothing, even the brutality of the rebellion, could prepare us for the brutality that was what we were about to experience.

When the concept had been explained, my vision blurred, and my knees clacked together. The Capitol wanted us…to…kill each other?

The idea was so absurd I almost laughed. Murder ripped apart the very _soul._

And yet, I crouched on the ground in the chilling darkness, ending the life of a person who is just as terrified as I am. She blinked salty tears from her eyes as she drew her last sharp breath.

My eyes bore into her lifeless ones in anguish.

_Wh-what had I done?_

Tears sprung from my eyes as I howled with fury at myself. I lowered my back on the grass, positioning myself exactly like the dead girl. Steadying the silver dagger in my trembling fingers, I slowly grazed along my wrists with the steel.

I was able to form one thought before my eyes flooded with blackness.

I'm nothing but vermin.


	5. Knowing

I stretch the smile across my face as my nails dig deeply into his skin. Bringing the finger to eyes view, I daintily touch my tongue to the clot of crimson liquid. It tastes sweet, and I let my eyelids flutter closed for a fraction of a second.

After wiping my red tipped flesh with my shirt, I stare into his eyes. He can't be more than thirteen years old. No surprise really; the smallest always get caught first.

Slipping the sheath from my sword, I thrust it straight into his stomach. His eyes widen to the very extent, and he chews his lip in a feeble attempt to be nonchalant. Pleased with myself, I twist the celestial weapon with ease. Chunks of his skin become crusted and fall to the sand.

"P-please," he whimpers, "I'm only a child."

I shake my head barbarically, matching the rhythm with my sword. "No, you are not," I say, barely resting my eyes on him.

He isn't. No one in Panem is. There are no children here. When we are born, we are born into a world with heavy hearts. We become adults the very minute we catch our first breath.

It starts with watching the others. Watching them cut and mutilate until you as well long for the taste of metallic insides. Then you are fitted with your own life-taker, and the world around you becomes an arena. The world becomes one of strewed innards, decapitated heads, and flaming arms. And that innocence, the love for porcelain dolls and wooden toy trucks is foreign, despicable.

And you won't know, only until the walls begin to close in on you. Only when that arena, a game to you, becomes something _real_ does your life come to a shrieking halt.

His manic shrieks are music to my ears. "Do that again, dear. It sounds lovely,"

Oh, now you know. But I don't.


End file.
